Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Thursday On SPEED Means All Day TV

This is the week where the action on the track starts Thursday. The Charlotte Motor Speedway is quiet on Friday while the World of Outlaws races Sprint Cars across the street at the dirt track.

SPEED starts Thursday day at 2PM with Mike Joy and Nationwide Series practice. The duo of Hermie Sadler and Jeff Hammond has been fun to listen to this this season as they called these sessions. Sadler has come a long way since he first began his part-time TV career and Hammond did a stellar job on the Hall of Fame show in a reporter category.

3:30PM brings the NASCAR on FOX team as they enter the final weekend of coverage for that network in 2010. This season, it will only be Mike Joy who takes a break after the Charlotte weekend. Darrell Waltrip is replacing Kyle Petty for the six RaceDay shows on SPEED this summer while Petty works for TNT.

As most NASCAR fans know, Larry McReynolds is one of the hardest working guys on TV. He continues with SPEED hosting NASCAR Performance and appearing on the Trackside program. McReynolds will once again be with the TNT team from the infield appearing on the pre-race show and providing race strategy and a crew chief perspective.

Sadler and Hammond are back at 5PM for final Nationwide Series practice before Joy and his team return with the featured TV of the night. Sprint Cup Series qualifying from under the lights at CMS begins at 7PM ET.

There is no Race Hub on SPEED Thursday, but there is a late night version of NASCAR Now airing at 1:30AM Eastern, 10:30PM Pacific time.

Here are some other TV/media notes:

Eric Shanks, a 38 year-old TV veteran and current VP at DirecTV has been named the new president of FOX Sports. Ed Goren, the 65 year-old former president, will move up to the Vice Chairman role and help Chairman David Hill with larger projects. Many remember Shanks as being the originator of the NFL Red Zone on DirecTV. He also worked at FOX and CBS in sports production roles.

Driver Tim Brown was on Sirius Wednesday and said that SPEED was going to be airing the Madhouse TV series that was seen on The History Channel. SPEED responded to TDP with the information that some talks have been ongoing with History, but at this time there has been no agreement reached and there is nothing to report.

TNT recently announced a new million dollar challenge that will take place over the network's six races. Coordinated through the NASCAR.com website, viewers can take a guess at the top ten finishing drivers in each race and if anyone matches all ten there is a million dollar prize waiting for them. Not a bad contest for the slow and traditionally rather sleepy TNT races.

Friday's TV will feature the big Speed Street celebration in downtown Charlotte. This is where Trackside has visited for years. That show airs at 7PM and leads into the big World of Outlaws race also on SPEED. The downtown Charlotte venue is memorable for Elliott Sadler's stage dive and for the panel getting rather tongue-tied with the appearance of singer Kellie Pickler.

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32 comments:

Always nice to see Mike Joy. I like Hammond and Hermie Sadler doing the practices for N'wide. I haven't watched the trackside show much this year -- it used to be one of my favorites but I guess I've burned out on some of the stuff that's become "worn" instead of fresh. Now I only watch if there's a guest that I especially want to see -- too much DW, not enough substance.

It's funny that the hoopla almost overshadows the race these day instead of the other way around.

My brother was talking about going to the Bowman-Gray races one time when we are in NC -- I'd like to get a chance to check it out in person.

Well, guess I won't be watching Raceday while TNT has the races. But that's ok, because TNT will more than make up for Fox's shortcomings. Wonder if Waldrip will shill for Western Auto (for free) to make up for all the money he got from them while using PCP's and running around at the back during his illusterous career.

Mr. Shanks helped develop the FOXTrax “glowing puck” and yellow first down line that is a staple of today’s televised football. He began his sports television career as a broadcast associate at CBS Sports in 1993.

Long time and never knew/notice this - on the Ragan tire change . . . for qualifying set-up they tape over the slot where the jack goes in to streamline it. I noticed they had to peel it back to put the jack in. Interesting.

JMHO, as someone who's been to a lot of races/qualifying/practice in person...people cheer every time a car gets out of shape. They cheer if it wrecks, they cheer if it doesn't wreck... They particularly cheer if it's the points leader or current champion. Or if it's someone named Busch, lol. anything that's out of the ordinary. My friend was at Indy once when a squirrel crossed the track during the Indy 500. They cheered when it made it across, and cheered when it got squashed on the way back. If Kez had hit that line of cars, they've had cheered too.

I think we can now say that DW is the "kiss of death". He just finished saying how much better the 12 car was handling, and then poof, he hit the wall. I hope my favorite drivers tell DW to keep the witchery off their cars.

With all the options SPEED has to pinch-hit for KP, why old DW? He might be the only one that would agree to sit next to Kenny Wallace's tired schtick for a month-and-a-half, I guess.

SPEED has been struggling for years with how to fit a half-hour show into a two-hour timeslot. Now, the summer will feature two of the least credible NASCAR personalities motormouthing through everyone's Sunday brunch.

The terrible thing is that DW is great when calling into Wind Tunnel or Sirius 128. If we could get that DW on the TV shows, it could help things a bunch. It seems the camera light comes on and he loses his mind. And we lose interest...

Why is it that the NFL, far and away the most popular TV sport gets by with a 1-hour pre-game, yet we get stuck with hours of commercials and mindless drivel, with a gem here or there, that doesn't quite make it worth tuning in?

JD, I enjoyed Phil on the broadcast with John Roberts. We shouldn't be surprised, he's BP's little brother. Agree with someone's earlier post, can't take KW any longer. I also like Hermie Sadler except he sounds like he's shouting maybe he can work on that.

Earl 9:59, You are spot on withthe DW comment and it made me chuckle. DW will be able tobabble and Kenny will do the same. Neither making anysense and neither really caring.Roberts aging level will accelerateeven more.

Among the many things that bother me when ol' DW and Larry Mac team up as they did on the qualifying show last night is the incessant pontification about how they would do things. I realize they both accomplished a lot when racing, but things have chnaged so dramatically since that point, I'd like to see them just give the drivers, teams etc. their due. I'm also over DW's inability to be objective - he was absolutely crushed when Newman bumped off Truex in Mikey's car - you know, the one with AARONS on it (again IIRC the only sponsor he mentioned).

On a positive note, I also liked Phil Parsons - he spoke well and was entertaining, offering a good perspective.

Vicki, it is the weirdest thing...it always sounds like Hermie is shouting, but I can't decide if he really is or it's just something about the way he delivers that it seems like that. I always think I won't understand him, but yet, I always do.

Have the WoO on now. Be interesting to see how their coverage is. Love to see more of it. I see they've borrowed the Postman...

Well, this is the last race of the season for the NASCAR on FOX guys. Next week at Pocano, the NASCAR on TNT will take over. But at least we'll see Larry McReynolds, Jeff Hammond, and all the others on SPEED in the weeks to come.